When The Fuse Is Lit
by Timbereads
Summary: With 7 bomb threats at PPTH in a month, Lisa Cuddy takes the 8th with a grain of salt. Until explosions start going off everywhere. Now House and the gang must escape the hospital alive...but the bomber has other plans.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

* * *

**Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital Clinic  
Tuesday, April 12****th  
10:13 A.M.**

* * *

Lisa Cuddy was stressed. Anyone could see that. If the frazzled hair and curious absence of make-up weren't obvious enough, the deep scowl that was frozen on her face certainly was. Her clothes were wrinkled and her feet were killing her. Running on barely 3 hours of sleep the past two days had taken its toll on her patience. For not the first time over the last month, she wondered once again what she'd done to deserve this nightmare; God was smiting her for the lip-gloss she'd stolen in 7th grade, she decided.

There was a simple cause for the chaos that had enveloped Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital and darkened her mood. It wasn't the electrical failure that had knocked out every elevator in the building, though that certainly didn't help. Nor was it the retirement of four cardiologists in a week, or the jump in worried parents insisting their children had bird flu. No, it was the bombs.

Or rather, she thought grimly, the bomb _threats_. Yesterday had been the seventh in a month; regulations required her to evacuate the hospital while the bomb squad searched futilely and ultimately deemed the threats false. Patients were transferred to other hospitals, clinic visitors ran screaming from the grounds, and the press…good lord, the press. The first time, reporters had praised her for her quick response to the possible danger. By the fifth, newspapers across New Jersey were calling for better security and ability to examine reliability. And _then_ she had to manage patients that had been admitted somewhere else, figure out whose was whose, not to mention convince the public that the hospital was not going to explode.

The worst part was that she _had_ to take the threats seriously, because if one _did _go boom, it would be her fault. God, she didn't want to think about that. Shuddering at the possibility, Cuddy stalked to her office and collapsed on the couch. Sleep. Need sleep.

When the phone started ringing, it took her a second to distinguish the noise from the ringing in her ears. Sleep. She dragged herself to the desk, eyes still closed. Where was that damn phone? Ah, there we go.

"What?" she sighed.

"Hello, Ms. Cuddy. Tired?" The voice was giving her goosebumps.

"Who is this?"

He chuckled. "All in good time, Ms. Cuddy. But I would advise you to step away from the window."

She was wide-awake now. "If this is another bomb threat, I'll…"

"You'll what? Ignore it? That would be foolish, Ms. Cuddy. Goodbye now. I hope your day is a blast." The man hung up, giggling. Cuddy rolled her eyes and rubbed her throbbing temples. Not again. Well, she would not be humiliated again. She'd call the bomb squad, but no evacuation. Yes, that's what she'd do. After her nap.

She spun on her heel and had taken a step towards the couch when the bomb exploded. The window behind her desk shattered, sending glass shards flying. The shockwave of heat threw her body against the opposite wall like a rag doll. Red. Flames were everywhere. She tasted blood, saw blood, felt blood. She lay crumpled in a heap on the floor. All she could see was red, even has her conscience slipped away.

Red.


	2. One

_A/N: Yeah, it's very short, but I figured a short update is better than no update, right? Anyway, so continues our epic tale...WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT!? DUN DUN DUNNNNNN. Sorry. Too much MacGyver._**  
**

**One**

**Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital Diagnostics Department**

**Tuesday, April 12****th**

**10:06 A.M.**

"You know what the greatest thing about all these bomb threats is?" House sighed happily from behind his desk. He knew his little duckies would have perked up their ears from the table where they'd sat like good minions and begun his overdue paperwork. "The clinic is basically empty because people are too scared they'll get blown up. No clinic duty for me!" He clapped his hands gleefully and went back to playing his video game. Cameron shook her head and scratched the back of her hand.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you you're not supposed to scratch bug bites?" Foreman chided. She pouted.

"I hate mosquitoes. Somehow, they manage to find a way into my house after I close all the windows."

"Where there's one, there's another," Chase said. "Bust out the OFF! and call it a night."

"They're probably attracted to your sugary sweetness," House muttered. Cameron cocked an eyebrow but said nothing. She'd dissect every syllable when she got home, but for now, it was better to pretend his words didn't make her heart race.

The electronic BOOP-Boop-boop signaled House's untimely death as Crash Bandicoot, and he groaned melodramatically.

"I hate this stupid game," he said as he stood and stretched his arms. "Gotta pee. When I come back, someone have some coffee ready." House limped to the door of the Diagnostic Department, and had it halfway open before the relative silence of the floor was decimated by the ear-blasting explosion that came from somewhere in the bowels of the hospital. The windowpanes shook and House felt the metal handle of the door vibrating violently in his palm. Were it not for his reflexive tightening to his cane, the doctor would have been thrown to the ground by the shockwave. As it were, House merely blinked in confusion and blocked out his fellows' cries of fear.

Gregory House was not a stupid man. One could even call him a genius. Many did, in fact. As doctors and nurses poured into the hall, chattering excitedly over the cause of the blast, he remained frozen where he stood, brain working furiously. This, he decided, was a bomb. Someone took advantage of the frazzled state of affairs at the hospital, and planted a bomb somewhere. The lobby, or maybe the clinic. He did not allow his mind to fixate on the wellbeing of Cuddy, or Wilson. Instead, he focused on not being blown to itty-bitty bits. _Where there's one, there's another_…Chase's mantra was echoing in his ears. For some reason, he found himself staring at a nurse's food cart parked haphazardly near an elevator. He'd remembered passing it on his way to the office, but it hadn't struck him as odd. Now, as he examined every visible surface from his spot by the door, he noticed a red blinking light flashing behind a curtain that covered the bottom shelf of the cart. _Where there's one, there's another…_

"Get down!" he screamed. "Get away from the elevators and get the fuck down!"

Well, that's what he tried to scream. He'd barely gotten the word 'away' out of his mouth when the cart erupted in flames and sent him flying into his beloved whiteboard.


End file.
